King Arthur Pendragon

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Strands of Fate and Other Things

The last entry of my blog was posted on May, 16th, more than a month ago. It was so little ago and so long ago. Much has changed since then. Life intruded for once, and the group changed for another. It is one of the vissicitudes of life. Nowadays, groups are less static than they were a few years ago, or at least mine is. The core group remains unchanged but others come and go. Either family, work or any other element forces a change. In other cases, I burn out of a particular game.

Let's face it, I was never a single-game player. I like to play things, I like to try out new things. Not everything suits me, but had I the time, and more money than I could shake a stick at so I wouldn't have to work, I would buy a lot more than I have gathering dust on my shelves. And I would play a lot more. Don't get me wrong. This is not a compulsive desire to have something that looses its appeal once I buy it. I genuinely enjoy reading new systems, to try out new things, to change genres, much like I never go see the same movie genre all the time.

Change is good, at least for me. It keeps me from burning out. And so, taking a break from out game of AD&D, we decided to try other things. I am a fan of wuxia (chinese martial arts fantasy), and I love the Chinese mythology and ancient culture. I have played Chinese-themed games in the past like Qin or Weapons of the Gods. One of my best campaigns was set in ancient china during the Warring
States period, so when some of my players began pressuring me start a new wuxia campaign it was just a matter of finding out the best system to do it.

A few years ago, I became also a great fan of FATE, but none of the current iterations of the system were quite what I was looking for: Spirit of the Century is pulp in the 20s, Diaspora is hard sci-fi and the Dresden Files is urban fantasy. Only Legends of Anglerre with its fantasy tropes could fill the void, with enough changes and adaptation as it is more suited to any type of classic fantasy campaign. Then along came Strands of Fate, and I glimpsed immediately all sorts of potential genres that could be emulated by it. You see, Strands of Fate, or SoF for short, is FATE-based, highly changed generic system. I created several characters in several genres and I like the result. The players seemed curious enough to try it.

So, a new page turns. Gone are the days of warriors and wizards, of orcs and goblins, of fallen kingdoms and might realms, of worlds of dragons and dungeons. On a more specific note, I will expand the blog to talk about anything game related, not just AD&D. I love roleplaying games too much to limit myself to one specific topic. So, while I may be playing a particular game, in any given time, I will talk about anything that strikes my fancy. I also enjoy writing on this blog (more than I anticipated). That's one more reason to keep it going. I hope you continue enjoy reading it and enjoying it as much as I do writing it.